Violeta

 

Violeta / Isabel Allende
trans. from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
NY: Ballantine, c2022
336 p.

This new book by Allende came into my library shortly after I'd finished reading Dora, Doralina, a novel of Brazil. This is similar in many ways, roving over the long life of Violeta, born in Chile and experiencing financial ups and downs as well as passionate relationships with violent men. I couldn't help but compare Dora and Violeta, even though the eras they lived in only overlapped slightly.

Violeta is born into a fairly wealthy family; the book opens with her birth in 1920. She the youngest, the only girl in a family of boys. And her life is affected by world events from the beginning - the Spanish Flu epidemic rips through Chile just as she's born. (Honestly, reading about this was a bit stressful in light of our own recent experiences with pandemic). Her family makes it through that, only to lose everything in the Crash. They have to leave their city dwellings and find a home in a rural area with relatives of a friend - Violeta, her mother and aunts all find a new home there, while her brothers fan out to make a living. 

It's one of those books where the main character is involved in a lot of things that allow for a country's bigger story to be told. There is a great deal about Chilean politics -- upheaval almost constantly. Class, money, misogyny, world events; they are all here. 

Viioleta grows up and then there is, just like with Dora's story, an incompatible marriage at a young age, only to be superseded by a relationship with a tempestuous, philandering man who operates on the edge of legality. While there is no official marriage for Violeta, she still deals with all the harrassment of a partnership with a man like this. However, she is clever, and still has a hand in running a housing business with her brother, so ends up being financially secure on her own. This gives her many more options once her romance with this bullying man changes. 

The story is theoretically being told as a letter from Violeta to her grandson, although this conceit only partially works. Sometimes the narrative kind of forgets it is a letter - I don't think that the epistolary form is necessary to this book. The ending, especially, doesn't make sense in a letter format, but we'll forgive that, since the narrative is flowing and engaging. Violeta is a great character who finds her own route through life despite obstacles and terrible events. She has a handful of close relationships, including a moving connection to her governess early on, and is indefatigable. It's an interesting look at a Chilean woman's experiences, although perhaps the last years of her life are glossed over pretty quickly. Still, really interesting and a great accidental companion read to Dora, Doralina for a look at South American women's lives over the last century.